


Ironwood Hall: Short AU1

by wheel_pen



Series: Ironwood Hall [3]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Haunted Houses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7495002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote this version first. It’s basically the entire arc of the main story, but in much fewer pages. After writing this, I felt I could expand upon the story, and that became the official version. So: Alpha Erik brings home a new Omega, Charles Xavier, for his opinionated house to judge. Only faster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ironwood Hall: Short AU1

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

 

The House did not like this Mate. She was too weak to propagate a strong line. So, the House disposed of her. The Master was sad for a while; but privately the Sister agreed. Not that the House needed anyone’s agreement. Now the way was clear for the Master to try again. Hopefully he would pick a better Mate next time.

**

“Rachel Benson. No, she’s engaged to Lord Hurst, it was in the _Times_ ,” Emma reversed, staring through her opera glasses at the crowd in the theatre below their box. “Elizabeth Lane. Well, she’s a Beta.”

“That works,” Erik commented with disinterest, flipping through his program.

“I think an Omega would be better,” she countered, writing down a few more possibilities.

“Someone who _survives_ would be better,” Erik shot back darkly. “You’re not going to find anyone who’ll say yes, anyway,” he predicted. “You’ll have to look abroad.”

“Charles Xavier,” Emma announced with satisfaction.

“Who?”

She pointed him out, discreetly. “He’s just returned from touring the Continent, but the family doesn’t have much money anymore.” Erik did not know how Emma knew these things. “Big houses, not enough income for upkeep. Here, take a look.”

Erik glanced through the glasses, seeing a boyish Omega with a ready smile and lovely blue eyes. He pulled back quickly. “Whatever.” It was better not to get attached, at the rate he went through spouses.

**

The new Mate entered and the House began to assess him. He said the House was beautiful and admired its woodwork; the House was not susceptible to flattery, however. He seemed a bit livelier than the usual demure, wilting Mates the Master had been bringing home; but, there had been that loud, obnoxious one that the House hadn’t liked either.

**

“The house is very old and it has a few quirks,” Erik warned Charles as he led him up the winding staircase. “There’s a lot of noise at night as it settles. Don’t let it bother you.”

“That’s okay, I’m used to old houses,” Charles assured him, and Erik glanced back at him as if to say, _This is a different beast_.

“This is your room,” Erik announced, opening one of the doors. “Emma’s at the end there, and I’m over here.”

Charles admired the spacious room he’d been given, but there was confusion on his face, which Erik was used to. “We aren’t… sharing a room?” he asked delicately. That was what spouses usually did.

“You can get settled in first,” Erik told him, as if this was a favor. Their ‘romance’ had been rapid and rather business-like, conducted mainly between Erik and Charles’s step-father; that was the lot of a young Omega.

“Oh. Well, that’s very kind of you, Erik,” Charles told him, his smile so infectious that Erik felt his lips starting to respond of their own accord, before he stopped them. He was going to see if Charles survived past a week or two, before he let himself get more deeply enmeshed.

“Dinner’s at seven,” Erik said abruptly, and walked away from that tempting smile, leaving the butler to tend the baggage.

**

The new Mate was creative. Some of the old Mates embroidered or painted a little, but the House had not been very impressed with their efforts. The new Mate was a writer, scribbling away in this room or that, or out in the garden. The stories were mainly about dragons and fairies and mermaids and so forth, with rather byzantine plots and vocabulary the House suspected was partially made up.

The new Mate was forever flicking ink around and leaving smudges on the furniture and linens, but the House found this not as annoying as usual. In fact the House rather wished the Mate would hurry up and write the next chapter of the unicorn adventure, because he’d left off on a cliffhanger, and the House was contemplating hiding the other stories until that one was completed. But the House didn’t think that would really work, as the Mate could be quite determined when he wanted to be, and even wrote in the margins of newspapers when he ran out of writing paper.

**

“Emma, have you seen—Oh my G-d, don’t!” Charles exclaimed rather dramatically, and a sudden downdraft from the chimney extinguished the lit match in Emma’s hand, before she could apply it to the newspaper crumpled in the grate.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just that I wrote part of a story on a newspaper, and then it disappeared,” Charles explained apologetically, as he sorted through the kindling. “Aha, here it is!”

Erik and Emma were still trying to decide if the house had actually intervened right then or not. Old places _were_ drafty, after all. “Why-why were you writing on newspaper?” Erik asked, since it seemed like someone should say something.

“Oh, I ran out of writing paper, and I had an idea that just couldn’t wait,” Charles shrugged. “I’ve found it all though, so it’s alright.”

“The cook has a roll of brown paper in the kitchen,” Emma pointed out calmly. “Use that next time.”

“Oh, that would be lovely, like an ancient scroll!” Charles decided. Emma smiled thinly, wishing he would go away so she could talk to her brother.

“Make sure writing paper gets on the grocery list,” Erik advised her.

“Of course. I didn’t realize we were using it so quickly.”

Charles grinned. “Cheers! That’d be so nice. Well, I’ll just go type these,” he added of the newspapers, and trotted off.

“The musician didn’t make it,” Erik pointed out gruffly, before Emma could speak. “And he was a decent musician.”

“Have you read any of the stories?” Emma checked.

“No.”

“Me neither.” She paused. “I suppose the house has.” She was replaying the draft from the chimney in her mind.

“It’s only been a week,” Erik countered, shaking his newspaper dismissively.

**

A thump and a crash woke Erik, but only because the door to his room stood open—locks didn’t mean much here when the house could do what it wanted. But on the other hand it was nice that the lamps automatically came up as he jumped out of bed and grabbed his robe and slippers. He saw Emma coming out of her room, and the door to Charles’s was open as well.

“Charles?” Erik called, looking inside for him.

“I’m down here!” Charles shouted back, from downstairs, and Erik and Emma shared a look before hurrying towards him.

Charles was sitting on the carpeted stairs, leaning against the railing. “What are you doing out of bed?” Erik asked with some irritation. “I told you to stay in your room at night.” Best not give the house any temptation.

“I know, Erik, but there’s a stray cat outside!” Charles said randomly, and acted like this explained something. “He sounded so lonely, and it’s so cold, I thought maybe he could come inside for the night and have some food.”

Erik blinked at him, then blinked at Emma, then back to Charles. “A stray cat?” he repeated dully, still not connecting the dots.

“Yes, he was right below my window,” Charles reiterated. “It’s alright, isn’t it, Erik? Just for the night. He might go on to his real home in the morning.”

Erik refused to get distracted by this cat story, or the way Charles’s eyes shown so hopefully in the dim light. “What was that noise?” he asked.

“Oh, I slipped on—well, my slippers,” Charles revealed. “I dropped the lamp but I don’t think it broke. It went out right away.” Emma picked it up from the floor, intact and _not_ the start of a blazing inferno. Hardly in the house’s best interests, that.

“Are you alright?” Erik checked, which he realized was a bit belated.

“Yes, I managed to grab the railing and catch myself,” Charles assured him, “only I seem to be a bit stuck.”

Erik went down the stairs and around to where Charles sat, now at eye level. Several tendrils of wrought iron from the railing had wound themselves firmly around Charles’s dressing gown, presumably preventing a further fall.

“I’m just a bit snagged, I think,” Charles added, “only I can’t see very well and I didn’t want to tear anything—“

“I’ll get it,” Erik told him. “Did you hit your head? Let Emma check.” This was merely a distraction technique, to keep Charles looking where Emma said, and not at what Erik was doing, which was tapping the iron briskly to make it uncoil and release Charles. Emma preferred to stroke it gently while thinking praise, but Erik didn’t see that it made any difference. “There, you should be free.”

Charles popped up. “Thanks, Erik! Sorry I got you both out of bed. Is it okay about the cat, though?”

“Fine, let’s go check on the cat,” Erik sighed.

**

Charles entered the parlor and walked right up to Erik to hug him. “Thank you!” he said brightly. They were finally sharing a bed now, which Charles thought was _so lovely_ , and he enjoyed being more affectionate with Erik.

Erik frequently found Charles confusing still, though not unpleasantly so. He started to smile in return, rusty and stiff though it was. “For what?”

“The fountain!” Charles replied, nonsensically. “It’s so beautiful now, with the mermaid and the plants—“ Erik still frowned. “I guess you saw me sitting there a lot to write,” Charles went on, becoming less confident. “Or should I be thanking Emma?” he checked, turning to his sister-in-law.

“The mermaid fountain, in the maze?” she asked.

“You shouldn’t go into the maze,” Erik chided his spouse. The house controlled the grounds as well.

“It’s so calm and peaceful there!” Charles claimed. “Very inspirational. And now the fountain is running and it’s all cleaned up. It seemed a bit neglected before,” he added delicately.

Erik stood. “Let’s go see it.”

The three of them trooped outside, followed by the black stray cat that Charles had dramatically named Raven. But she was there only because she wanted to be, and not because they had suggested it.

“The maze is very confusing,” Erik warned as they entered it. Especially because the hedgerows could shift around on their own. “You might easily get lost.”

“I’ve always found my way out before,” Charles assured him blithely. “I tried making a map at first, but I kept messing it up. So now I just go by instinct, and I end up where I want to be.”

Erik glanced back at Emma to check her reaction. It sounded very much like the house _helping_ Charles. But it was still somewhat ambiguous, it could be just luring him—

“Here’s the fountain,” Charles announced, and Erik stopped to stare.

“Holy s—t,” he blurted, and Charles made a tsking noise at his language. But the fountain had been completely transformed, from abandoned and decrepit to pristine and ornate, sparkling water cascading from the mermaid’s conch shell into the pond below.

Charles scampered over to sit on the edge. “There’s fish, too,” he pointed out. “Only it will get cold soon, what do you do with the fish in the winter?”

“I have no f-----g idea,” Erik replied, still gazing at the fountain. It was difficult to interpret this as anything other than a sign of approval.

“There’s the atrium,” Emma suggested. Her look told Erik to play along, and stop making such a big deal of the fountain in front of Charles. “We could fix it up, and put the fish in the pond there.”

“Oh, I didn’t know we had an _atrium_!” Charles said with excitement. Raven jumped up on the lip of the pond to bat at the fish, and Charles shooed her down.

“It’s in the east wing, where you aren’t to go,” Erik told him. Because telling Charles not to do things had worked so well. “It’s not structurally sound.” Charles nodded dutifully, as he always did at first.

“So… who had the fountain fixed?” he prompted. “No, Raven, leave the fish alone. You might fall in!”

“That was my idea,” Erik claimed, which was a little nonsensical after all his confusion. “I delegated it to Emma.”

His sister pasted a smile on her face. “I delegated it to the staff,” she lied in turn. “I didn’t think they’d get to it so quickly.”

Charles gave them both a sunny smile and a big hug, which Erik was slowly getting used to but Emma was not. “Thank you both so much! I’ll go thank Stewart and Mrs. Malloy,” he decided, of the butler and housekeeper.

Charles trotted confidently away through the maze and Erik started to warn him, lest he get lost, but Emma stopped him and they waited there stiffly until they were certain Charles was out of earshot. “It’s only been a month,” Erik said first, pessimistically.

“The house cleaned the fountain for him, and helps him through the maze,” Emma stated.

“It tuned the piano for the musician,” Erik reminded her. “He lasted two months.”

“He wasn’t kind-hearted like Charles,” Emma observed thoughtfully.

“Lots of them have been _kind_ ,” Erik scoffed.

“Maybe we should tell him,” Emma suggested, but Erik squashed that.

“When it’s _your_ spouse, you can decide when to tell,” he ordered, and left the maze, or rather tried, it took a while before the hedgerows let him out.

**

The House wasn’t saying definitively just yet, but so far, it liked the Mate. He was creative and kind and smart, and energetic without being disruptive. He was a bit messy though, and very curious, always poking his nose into places he shouldn’t go. A previous Mate had not survived doing that; but she had done so with a suspicious mind, wondering what secrets the Master was keeping from her. This Mate just wanted to see and explore. So the House prevented loose beams from falling on him just yet.

**

“I told you to stay out of the east wing!” Erik snapped, dragging Charles back to the main foyer.

“I know, Erik, but I just wanted to see—“

“I expect you to show a lot more obedience from now on!” Erik commanded. He had not sensed _willfulness_ from Charles. Now his eyes were downcast and he scuffed at the wooden floor contritely.

“I’m sorry, Erik—“

“It’s for your own protection,” Emma added, descending the stairs in her ghostly white dress. “Erik’s been married before, did you know that?”

“Emma,” Erik warned.

“Someone said that, yes,” Charles agreed.

“His previous spouses are dead,” she went on bluntly.

“Emma!”

She continued to ignore Erik. “They mainly died in household accidents.” Charles looked from one to the other, his eyes alarmed. “Falling down the stairs, or out a window—“

“One was killed by a falling beam while poking around the east wing,” Erik added, giving in. “Another got lost in the maze.” She was presumed dead long before they actually found her.

“Drowned in the bathtub, and the pond—“

“One put rat poison in her tea instead of sugar—“

“Carriage accident in the yard—“

“Bedroom caught fire—“

“Why are you telling me this?” Charles demanded. He had crept backwards until the stair rail was between him and the siblings.

“So you’ll be more careful,” Erik replied. He could see how maybe this all looked a bit sinister. Well, because it _was_. “The house and grounds are dangerous.”

Tears sparkled in Charles’s eyes, which Erik did not like to see. “I didn’t—I never felt like I was in danger,” he said softly. _Before_ , he might have added.

This was not going at all how Erik or Emma had planned. “You just need to stay in the main parts, and not go wandering off—“

“I’m not sure how that applied to the one who was poisoned, or drowned in the bathtub!” Charles rejoined intemperately. “Excuse me, please!” He hurried up the stairs to his room, the door lock clicking behind him.

Erik sat down tiredly on the stairs. “Maybe he’ll decide to leave,” he suggested gloomily. They’d also lost a couple of spouses that way—lucky escapes for them, really.

“You don’t want him to leave,” Emma predicted.

“At least he would be alive,” Erik shot back. He thought, maybe, if Charles died, he would not be interested in trying any longer. “I’ll talk to him in the morning. If you can avoid strangling or smothering him for one more day!” he added loudly to the house, and Emma chided him.

**

The Mate was unhappy. This made the House unhappy. It liked this Mate, and the Master did too. The Master shouldn’t make the Mate unhappy.

**

“Why is it so d—n cold in here?” Erik complained.

“The fire won’t start,” Emma replied tartly.

“I’ll send Charles some extra blankets—“

“Oh, _his_ fireplace is fine,” Emma informed him. “Mrs. Malloy says it’s toasty warm in his room.”

“The house never liked anyone before,” Erik reminded her.

“Well, it had to start sometime.”

“Maybe I could go talk to him,” Erik sighed.

A fire sparked in the grate, as the House gave encouragement to the Master, who could be a little dim-witted sometimes. Erik did not find this unnerving when it was just him and Emma, although occasionally annoying.

“You could’ve just _said_ ,” he commented, getting up from his chair.

The paintings on the walls watched him as he went up the stairs. They had been showing a lot more dragon hoards and fairy castles lately; Erik didn’t usually pay attention to them. He knocked on Charles’s door. “Charles? Can I speak to you?”

There was a pause. “I’m rather tired, Erik—“ Charles began tactfully.

Raven meowed, judging Erik. “Raven wants in,” he said.

“Well, alright,” Charles agreed. The door was unlocked and opened, but Charles was sitting in a chair before the fire. Raven raced in to join him.

Erik stepped in carefully, checking to see if there was a servant behind the door. There wasn’t. “Your door opened on its own,” he pointed out to Charles.

“Yes, it does that sometimes,” Charles agreed. He had been reading a book and glanced between it and Erik. Raven forced her way onto his lap and the door shut, keeping the warmth in. “Like the lamps go on and off on their own, and the bed gets made, and my papers straightened up.” He looked up at Erik. “I always thought it was nice.”

Erik started to sit down in the other chair, but it danced away, fortunately with enough warning that he didn’t fall. Charles merely raised an eyebrow. “I apologize for frightening you,” he told Charles. “I think most people would be scared of a house that did things on its own.”

“Well, I didn’t know it killed people,” Charles admitted. “I feel sad for them. Like I do for the mice Raven kills.” He stroked the purring cat. “I suppose that’s just its nature.”

“Yes. Could you come here?” Erik said to the chair in exasperation, and it moved back finally so he could sit. “Would you rather leave?” he asked Charles. “That would be safer for you.”

“I’d-I’d rather stay,” Charles replied hesitantly.

“I would speak to your stepfather,” Erik added. “Make sure he understood you were not to blame.”

“You don’t know my stepfather,” Charles responded, with a twisted smile Erik did not like. “I’ll take my chances with the house.”

There was a story there that Erik needed to investigate, because he had the feeling it was going to make him very angry. But for the time being, Charles was staying, and that filled him with a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire. “Maybe we can fix up the east wing,” he speculated.

“I would like to see the atrium,” Charles agreed. It had hardly seemed worth prodding the house for repairs, when it was just Erik and Emma.

**

The Mate was happy, and the Master was happy. The House was happy too, it had taken long enough for the Master to find the right Mate. But the House was not one to rest on its laurels; next there was Offspring to consider. And a Mate for the Sister as well.


End file.
